Odds and ends, again...

It's a few minutes until lunch, and I'm fresh from sleeping in, exercising (treadmill, one hour, 3.24 mi, 254 calories), showering, getting dressed, and leaving the room so the hotel staff can do their thing.

Work two nights ago went fairly swimmingly. I was in place at the appointed time (7 pm) and everything was ready for the French techs to start their test of the satellite's RF channel by 9:30. The techs actually arrived a bit later, and eventually, all was set for the test to begin. Most uncharacteristically, the Russian side completely emptied hall 101, where the satellite sat in the horizontal position, already wrapped in its streamlined fairing. (I seem to recall the RF test for the Intelsat campaign last summer occurred before fairing installation, but I digress...)

This emptying surprised me and led the ILS safety engineer to wonder out loud just what Bad Thing™ must have once happened out here at some time during a radio test for the Russians to have such a policy today. Generally speaking, Russian industrial practice does not subscribe to the err-way-over-on-the-side-of-safety approach that, for example, causes the U.S. to clear the полтинник of all but essential personnel during satellite fueling. While a skeleton U.S./French group fueled the satellite, Russian technicians were two rooms over (about 100 yards away), working on the adapter system and the Breeze-M upper stage.

This is not to say that the Russians are not safety conscious. They are, just to a different extent. (Extents vary among non-Russians as well. French safety rules, for example, require their personnel to be out of the hotel area - which is within some critical radius of the launch pad - by 11 hours prior to the launch of our satellite; the comparable U.S. rule requires evacuation by launch minus two hours.)

In the end, the radio test went well, and the satellite's batteries were charged, too. This all was accomplished well in advance of the 3:30 am scheduled end time for those activities. All of us working this task were back at our respective hotels by 1:30 am, which made a relatively short work day for me.

Time for lunch. Mine is the afternoon slot today, starting at 1 pm.

Cheers...

About yesterday...

It came as a welcome surprise to find out, upon arriving at work two nights ago, that yesterday had been declared a general day off for most people (since most of what was going on was being done by Khrunichev). This fortunately included the interpreters, so around 2 pm, everyone assembled in front of the hotel for a trip into town and filled two vans to overflowing, requiring a third van to be called.

Unlike previous trips, the weather this time was quite cold, so walking around the market was not something one did casually. People made their purchases and then headed off in the direction of the pizzeria.

Probably the strangest item I saw at the market this time around was being sold by the spice dealer, who had a container of brown, leafy substance on sale. Initially, I mistook this for cinammon, but when I asked to confirm this, I was told that it was the material one finds inside of walnuts, growing in the spaces between the meat of the nut. (Material - and I don't know what the proper name is for it - that nobody I know eats.)

Before I could ask what it was for, I was told one uses it to impart flavor to vodka. After a month's marination, the vodka takes on a decidedly walnut-ty taste, and the vendor assured me that the resulting concoction not only tasted good, but had marvelous medicinal properties. I passed.

To call the vendors in this part of the market "aggressive" would be an understatement. It was hard to pass a table without getting the hard sell - for anything at all: honey, pickles, fruit - all the way down the row. If you stop to look at anything (I was vaguely interested in fresh mushrooms on sale, just to see what kind they were), this is taken as a signal to start placing goods on the scale and haggling is expected to begin immediately.

Maya entered into negotiations to buy a pomegranite, and as I approached and stood next to her, the vendor took another fruit out of the box and put it on the scale. Maya said she only wanted one; the vendor looked perplexed and said, "But there's two of you!" In the end, she ended up with one pomegranite - the biggest one he could find, by the way - but at a discount: the vendor dropped the price from 27 to 25 rubles (about 6 cents on a dollar purchase).

Like I said: hard sell.

Before leaving, I did catch sight of a curious display, which I dubbed the "banana shrine" (it looks like someone had lit candles to appease the banana gods), even though I knew there was a practical reason for the setup (I'd guess to keep the bananas from freezing). (It should be noted that the photographer kept a reasonable distance from the stand, to keep from being cajoled to buy!)



Because people were coming out of the market area and leaving stuff they'd bought in the vans, we were left to use our feet to get to the "Arbat" area. This was an uncomfortable distance of something short of a mile, and this time, upon entering the establishment, I took a seat downstairs, with some of the French team members, instead of in the upstairs dining hall favored by the Americans (mostly because it's a smoke-free room).

There was a party going on downstairs, of young people, to celebrate the birthday of one of the young ladies present, and this reminded me again that it was Natalie's birthday, and of what a small world it was. Later on, I went to the bar to refill my glass and, while there, convinced the young ladies working behind the counter to pose for this picture:



Earlier today, folks descended into hall 101 for a photographic free-for-all, including this shot of me in front of the space head unit.



I have spent the better part of the work day interpreting for a documentation meeting, and is my throat tired! It's a good thing that my work assignment ends in just a few minutes.

Tomorrow, I won't get off so lightly. It'll be a full work day, with a morning session out at the pad, helping install some satellite monitoring gear in the so-called "vault.". Even though the vault is underground, that means warm clothing and head protection. Winds have been high, and temperatures have been low.

The announcement has been made regarding the bus to the hotel. I must run.

Cheers...